Shakira Takes Heat For Selling “Nazi-Like” Merchandise While On Tour

Live Nation, Shakira’s touring company, released a statement apologizing for their merchandise design that supposedly was comparable to Nazi imagery. Fans on social media claimed the $10 necklace on her website looked like the “Black Sun” or “Sunwheel” distributed by the National Socialists in Germany in the late 1930’s and the early 1940’s.

Bento, a German news website, said the similarities between her piece of merchandise and Nazi artifacts were self-evident, and that neo-Nazi’s still use them today in the G7 nation, much to the chagrin of German citizens and government officials.

Following the backlash, Shakira and Live Nation pulled the item and replaced it with another necklace. According to the touring company, they tried to create “pre-Colombian” imagery.

In their statement, they explained that many of Shakira’s fans had noticed “the design bears an unintentional resemblance to Neo-Nazi imagery.”

And for that reason, they offered their most sincere apologies for offending anyone, and don’t condone any of the murderous ideologies of the former Socialist party.

As you may know, in Germany, anti-Nazi sentiment runs high, possibly more than any other industrialized Western nation. Obviously, because of Germany’s direct involvement in the persecution of minorities in the nation at the beginning of the 20th century.

Following the horrors of the Second World War, Germany has banned all Nazi symbols and anybody caught donning any imagery or Nazi symbolism is charged immediately with a hate crime and may even receive prison sentencing.

And following the election of Donald Trump, who allegedly capitalized on racial resentment – according to his critics – citizens in many Western nations are increasingly more sensitive to any forms of obvious and unobvious forms of racism.

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This is just one of many issues Shakira has faced off with lately, as she is currently under investigation for tax evasion, a transgression widely reported in Latin American news outlets.